Out to blow your minds with its awesomeness!

Rating: 10/10 (14 July 2013)

Watch out- Pacific Rim is out to blow your minds with its awesomeness. Do you remember the time when as a kid you used to smash action figures and other toys together, imagining momentous battle scenes in your mind? Do you remember Johnny Socko and his flying robot, or more recently- Godzilla? What if the most creatively nerdy director in the world decides to pander the child in you and dish out 2 uninhibited hours of monsters vs robots big bash? The result- a summer blockbuster that stamps out all other blockbusters.
"We always thought alien life would come from the stars, but it came from deep beneath the sea. A portal between dimensions in the Pacific Ocean"
A speedy prologue sets up the background- the Kaiju are alien monsters that are emerging from a deep sea inter dimensional portal. Using nuclear weapons against them will cause too much collateral damage, so the humans design towering 25 story robots called jaegers (means hunter in German) to take on the kaiju. The jaegers are piloted by two individuals connected neurally through a technology called as Drift, wherein they share memories and experiences. At first the jaeger program is successfully, the pilots gain celebrity status. But the kaiju get bigger and smarter, begin to adapt, and win the battles. The world leaders deem the jaeger program to be a failure and begin to build walls to fortify the coastal cities. Rayleigh (Charlie Hunnam) is a retired jaeger pilot who lost his brother when fighting a particularly nasty kaiju. His commander Marshall Stacker Pentacost (Idris Elba) convinces him to come out of retirement for a last ditch effort to destroy the portal once and for all. His new partner is Mako Mori, an exceptionally talented pilot with a painful past. The movie is about dealing with survivor guilt and moving on after a loss- both Mako and Rayleigh must learn to pilot their robot Gypsy Danger with flamboyance and passion to save the world.
No big stars, no introspective or quip happy superheroes, no literary source, not a sequel- how then does Pacific Rim tower over a summer full of blockbusters? Three words- Guillermo del Toro. This vividly imaginative director literally breathes life into the visuals through his eye for detail, and in one fell scoop he has not only resurrected the giant monster genre, but also finally ensured that Hollywood paid homage to Godzilla (rest in peace, Roland Emmerich's 1998 Godzilla!), mashing it up with modern tech-no sheen with visual impact that eschews current Transformerish blurry action in favor of crisp and clear widescreen shots that are mind-boggling in impact, such as when a jaeger clubs a kaiju with an ocean liner, or when a kaiju flies off with a jaeger in its claws only to have itself decapitated mid air with a giant sword. Every frame is beautifully shot- the bone crunching impact when metal meets flesh, or the gorgeous detailing of the robots and monsters. The robots have the personalities and actions reminiscent of their country and pilots- so the one from China is like a little martial art fighter, the Russian is a behemoth brawler, and the Australian looks like a rugby player. The monsters though have been a del Toro trademark all his life, whether it is Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy or Cronos. You have kaiju of all shapes, sizes and kinds- reptilian, crustacean, insectoid. If one lumbers around like a gorilla, another slithers around like a Chinese dragon, and the biggest one resembles a biblical, horned demon.
A movie as loud and bombastic as Pacific Rim does not really leave much scope for acting. Having said that an eclectic cast largely does the job. Charlie Hunnan is serviceable as the lead but plays a clichéd character, Rinko Kikuchi is the emotional core and also brings in the Japanese angle, Idris Elba looks a million bucks and carries himself exactly like the man you want in charge when facing a monster invasion, an over the top Charlie Day and Ron Perlman bring on the requisite laughs.
Bridges are destroyed, cities are leveled, and skyscrapers are shattered, and this is even before the opening credits. I could go on and on describing each scene in detail, but there is the thing about beauty- its best seen, not read. Go on and experience a sensory overload for yourself. Call it eye candy, call it popcorn entertainment, call it summer extremism, or simply call it what all movies were always meant to be- glorious fun. Unmissable.